AusQuest eyeing for copper in Peru

AusQuest (ASX:AQD) is set to kick off a new drilling program at the Cerro de Fierro Copper-Gold project in southern Peru by the end of the month – which will involve drilling three holes, totalling around 800 metres.

The program is hoped to investigate a recently identified copper target near a previously drilled area.

In fact, a review of past drilling data revealed an important area that hasn’t been tested for structurally controlled mineralisation. This has become the focus of the new drilling effort.

This particular new target is located close to a drill hole which had intersected multiple zones of copper-gold mineralisation – and some previous results had indeed show 30 metres at 0.43% copper and 0.16 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold, 43 metres at 0.43% copper and 0.35 g/t of gold, 28 metres at 0.42% copper and 0.15 g/t of gold, and 33 metres at 0.24% copper and 0.13 g/t of gold.

One important factor to note is that the Cerro de Fierro project is situated at the southern end of a known iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) metallogenic belt in southern Peru. It is about 150 kilometres from the Mina Justa deposit, which contains approximately 337 million tonnes at 0.76% copper and is being developed by the Marcobre Joint Venture.

“We believe these are excellent potential to find extensions to the copper and gold
mineralisation intersected by earlier drilling, now that we have a much better understanding of the controls on the mineralisation,” AusQuest’s Managing Director, Graeme Drew said.

AQD has been trading at 1.4 cents.